Operating theatres are a "hostile environment for
women", one of the country's leading female surgeons has told the BBC.
Jyoti
Shah said women in her field faced sexism every day because it was engrained in
surgery.
She
has called for a cultural change.
Meanwhile,
the first female president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Clare Marx, said
there needed to be a focus on developing women's careers in surgery.
Ms
Shah, a consultant urological surgeon at Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
said: "Surgery still remains very male dominated, and it does still appear
as an old boys' club and you're very much an outsider as a woman.
"You're
trying to break into their gang almost, and that culture is quite engrained in
surgery."
There
are approximately 800 female surgical consultants in England, and they
represent only 11% of the total.
Even
though the number of women has been increasing year on year, it has been a
gradual process.
A 2013 survey of newly qualified UK
doctors suggested that 68%
of the female ones believed surgery was not a career that welcomed women.
According to research by Exeter University, women could be
discouraged from entering surgery because there are fewer female role models,
and a perception by some that they are less likely to succeed than their male
counterparts.
Attitudes
Ms
Shah believes the problem is partly down to a hierarchical structure, which she
says is dominated by men in senior positions.
She
told the BBC: "I know one woman who as she was operating, she leant over
and the consultant whom she was operating with very gently brushed against her
breast.
"More
subtle forms are being referred to as 'the nurse', being in a meeting with men
and being the only woman and you're asked to make the tea.
"There
needs to be a cultural change so that women don't feel uncomfortable or
inferior," she said.
Sexist abuse
The
first female president of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), Clare Marx, said
there was a gender inequality in surgery.
But
she said the culture was already changing and that was reflected in the growing
number of women going into medicine.
She
said: "We can't tell people to change their culture, what we have to do is
grow the numbers and show the way we can change the culture from within rather
than dictating.
"Laying
down rules doesn't work.
"We
have started an emerging leaders programme, which is a pilot, and what we've
done is put out applications to women who are interested in leadership, and
from the applications we're trying to bring them into the college and talk to
them about their futures - their leadership roles - and their various issues
about their career."
Saving lives
Becoming
a surgeon takes can take up to eight years after graduating from medical
school. The RCS said the length of training could put some women off if they
were keen to have children.
Some
surgeons argue that Ms Shah's claims of sexism are hyperbolic and that humorous
banter is being wrongly interpreted.
Ms
Marx said there was fine line between a joke and sexist abuse.
"We
have to be very careful that there isn't a confusion between a manner of
speaking and something that is rightly offensive," she said.
Best talent
But
Ms Shah firmly believes there needs to be an overt cultural shift in surgery or
the field will miss out on employing the brightest recruits.
She
said: "This is about saving lives and recruiting the best talent possible,
regardless of gender, we want to create an environment that is appealing to
everybody - we owe that to patients.
"We
need more discussion about it actually, maybe have discussion groups about it
and say, 'Do you realise how the impact of that behaviour was on the rest of
the team or on your colleague?'
"And
the problem is a lot of this becomes the norm because it has always happened,
and you know women start to accept it."
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